Should I exchange links with other sites?

In my inbox this last week was an email offering a link trade with some used car website. The email read,

“…The site was established to provide link popularity to sites…The site is very old and established in all the search engines…When I link to you from the above site, your site will perform better in search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.”

Search engines use complex algorithms to give search results based on keywords that searchers type. The goal of search engines is to provide searchers with information they are looking for. They do so by evaluating a combination of data to rank sites in search results. The data includes links from sites with complimentary or related content.

A used car site and a lawyer marketing site are not complimentary and share no related content. People searching for used cars are searching for used cars, not lawyer marketing.

There are good partnerships to have in link exchanges, though. They are the same partnerships that are good to have for your practice in general—legal and community associations, places with information that will allow your clients to do some self-guided research, and links to the actual text of laws that apply to your clients. These are all good resources for your clients, and a link to your site from any of these sites would both increase your business and your search engine rankings.

So, remember that if you are considering exchanging links, your first priority should be to point your customers to useful information, and have customers at other sites be pointed to you, if your information may be useful to them. Only after this first requirement is satisfied should you employ a link exchange to increase your search engine rankings.